Giving parents a Fayre deal

Brewing giant Whitbread has been stealing the headlines recently with its strategic move into the fast-growing leisure industry.

The chain is understood to be spending 300m on restaurants, hotels and – with an eye to the future – “family pubs”. It is creating up to 2,500 new jobs in the process.

A large part of the money is going towards the creation of 50 new “super-pubs” for the nationwide Brewers Fayre chain. The first of these opened last month in Beckton, East London.

These super-pubs, with state-of-the-art playing areas and facilities for children’s parties, are designed particularly for families.

Whitbread is looking for suitably large premises – anything from large country houses to sprawling farms are being considered – to transform into 49 more “fun factories” for the whole family.

The rationale behind the move towards family pubs is clear. Whitbread brewery managing director Wess van Riemsdijk says “visiting the pub with children is a growing trend” and “the family market is one of the fastest growing in the country”.

Whitbread alone has doubled the number of children visiting its pubs from 1 million in 1993 to 2 million in 1994.

But despite the company’s willingness to invest in the family pound, the brewing fraternity as a whole is renowned for preferring even the most disgustingly-mannered, beer-swigging adult to anyone who commits the crime of being too short to reach the bar.

I’m not talking about bars that refuse to stock straws with faces on them, nor publicans who direct anyone with children into the “family room”, generally decorated some time before the Boer War and strewn with fag-butts. No, as a parent for whom the term “family pub” conjures up images of gangs of desperate parents huddled around frost-covered see-saws and broken swings, I have long come to the conclusion that people with young children are about as welcome to the average British publican as an outbreak of botulism in the pickled eggs.

After all, even in my newly-adopted Sussex, where 75 per cent of the pubs only manage to keep open by serving food as well as ale, children are considered far more of a nuisance than foul-mouthed drunks, or even vicious dogs.

Several of the local landlords here have signs to prove it – from the reasonably innocuous “Children welcome as long as they are on a lead” to the rather insulting “Children welcome, but only in lockable muzzles”.

Despite my astonishment at the crass refusal of the average publican to grab the not inconsiderable family pound and be grateful, I imagined that Brewers Fayre would be rather downmarket for my family’s taste.

Just one look at the Charlie Chalk children’s menu conjured up visions of what I imagine Butlin’s Holiday Camp was like 30 years ago – all fun-sized bags of crisps and embarrassing party hats.

But I needn’t have worried. Having now visited two of Whitbread’s 230 Brewers Fayre restaurants – one to eat in, one simply to look at – I can report that one brewery, at least, is prepared to treat parents and their offspring like human beings.

Part of the appeal is their facilities: each has (as a minimum) a comprehensive children’s menu, high chairs and nappy changing. And most have impressive internal and external play areas.

But it’s also the atmosphere. In the two that I visited, the staff were genuinely friendly, efficient at their job, but unfazed by the tantrums and mess that are an inevitable part of being “family-friendly”.

In fact, so relaxed and informal was the atmosphere in the Brewers Fayre near Tonbridge that the parents themselves were able to unwind. Not enough to forget that they still had to get little Hannah home in time for ballet, nor that they’d promised to buy Hamish a Power Ranger dressing-gown, but relaxed enough to enjoy a meal in public without worrying that their children were about to get barred. And that in itself is quite an achievement.

A large proportion of the Brewers Fayre premises have a Fun Factory, which again might sound dreadful to those with a nervous disposition, but actually isn’t. It’s essentially an indoor play area with toys, games, slides and adventure equipment for three to ten-year-olds. It costs 1 a session and most kids run in and out as many times as they want to.

While the play area isn’t specifically supervised, the staff who are on hand to “make sure that the equipment is working” tend to act like unofficial nannies, only demanding that parents come and claim those few offspring that get out of control.

For under-threes there are toddler areas next to the dining area, as well as an usual array of Fireman Sam or Postman Pat rides that are obligatory for all contemporary pre-schoolers.

Brewers Fayre started out about ten years ago as a pub that also happened to do cheapish, but good-quality, food. It has since grown into one of Britain’s most successful pub restaurant chains and one of only a tiny handful that specifically cater for families.

It has two chief target markets: parents between 30 and 45 years of age and older adult couples who don’t object to children. Between the two markets, it claims to cater for the whole extended family – from babies to hulking great ten-year-olds, and from harassed parents to indulgent grandparents.

Although I’m glad to report that Brewers Fayre specifically caters for families – without inflicting on them what I can only describe as over-the-top McDonalds’ values – Whitbread doesn’t want to alienate the army of male boozers who have made the pub what it is today. Without appearing to enforce any segregation, the family dining area – next to the Fun Factory – is cleverly screened from the main bar so that serious drinkers (who use their own entrance) can get it down their necks without ever having to hear the word nappy.

“Although we’re very family-oriented, our non-family customers don’t like the kids running around,” a waitress told me solemnly.

“And anyway, parents would rather sit with other parents than with sneering single men,” she says.

Last month (April), Brewers Fayre was – for the third year – running the named Family Pub of the Year in the annual Tommy Campaign Parent Friendly Awards. Next month it will start a TV advertising trial.

Other breweries please take note.